verghesemathews's blog

Today, Indian law places considerable importance on intellectual property rights (IPR). Why is IPR important today in India? How can it spell growth opportunities for big and small companies? What advantage does it bring?

The following discussion is based on the concept of the doctrine of foreign equivalents which gives rise to the terminology of language marks. This is a new concept in trademark law and is looked into seriously by MNCs. There is also an emphasis on the country of India which has numerous languages, and is a place which is ripe for such controversies to arise.

“No body has any right to represent his goods as the goods of somebody else.”- Lord Halsbury Passing Off (not referring to college or school here) is a common law tort, which can be used to enforce the rights of an unregistered trademark holder. What it does is that it prevents one person from misrepresenting his goods and services as that of another. This tort is available where there is a prospect of confusion of identity through the unauthorized use of similar marks or get up and is likely to damage the goodwill and reputation of a business.

Moral Rights are the special rights of an author. These rights are generally recognized in countries following the rule of law. They owe their origin to the countries of France and Germany. States, which include moral rights in their copyright statutes, are called “droit d’ auteur States” which literally means right of the author.

Meaning of “droit d’ auteur States”

These moral rights are